Gloria Sunday Market, Rio de Janeiro

Gloria
Rio de Janeiro
Brazil

Concierge.com's insider take:

This largely neglected neighborhood near the Santos Dumont domestic airport has a boisterous Sunday market that offers a tantalizing insight into the ordinary lives of Rio's residents. Vendors call out their wares, vying with high-volume samba and bossa nova beats, and with the street kids who bash out a rhythm on upturned fruit cartons and rusted oil drums. To the right, a vendor heaps ice over exotic tambaqui fish, flown in that morning from the Amazon; to the left, a stallholder tantalizes passersby with little-known jungle fruit such as bacuri and cupuaçu. Housewives haggle over the price of jackfruit, dip a hand into a water bucket to choose the feistiest crab, or cast a critical eye over colorful lines of chili peppers. Trample some discarded fruit underfoot, breathe the fullness of the humid air, and in one short hour, you'll learn more about Brazil than in a week on the beach.